Acacia dunnii

Acacia dunnii, commonly known as Dunn's wattle or elephant ear wattle is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to northern Australia. It is a shrub or tree covered with a fine, white powdery bloom, elliptic to egg-shaped phyllodes, spherical heads of golden yellow flowers and narrowly oblong, more or less woody pods. The Jamindjung, Ngaliwurru people and Nungali people know the plant as bawaya, and the Ngarinyman as barrawi.

Description

Acacia dunnii is an erect shrub or small tree that typically grows to high, wide, and is covered with a white, powdery bloom. The leaves are elliptic to egg-shaped, shallowly sickle-shaped, long and wide, wavy, leathery and glabrous with four or five prominent veins. The flowers are borne in spherical heads in panicles long on peduncles long, each head in diameter with 50 to 85 golden yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from January to June and the pods are narrowly oblong, more or less woody, up to long and wide. The seeds are broadly elliptic to oblong, long and brown with an aril on the end.

Taxonomy

Acacia dunnii was first formally described in 1922 by William Bertram Turrill in the Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information from "fissure in hard quartzite rock near Victoria River, Northern Territory" in 1922. The specific epithet honours Edward John Dunn, the Victorian government geologist.
Turrill cited Acacia sericata var. dunnii as a synonym of A. dunnii.

Distribution and habitat

Dunn's wattle grows in skeletal soils over sandstone, basalt or quartzite on ridges and stony hills in the Central Kimberley, Northern Kimberley, Ord Victoria Plain and Victoria Bonaparte bioregions of Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Conservation status

Acacia dunnii is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions and as of "least concern" under the Northern Territory Government Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act.